Payments infrastructure underpins future innovation

By Milan Rojan

As the UK payments landscape continues to evolve, the focus should shift from introducing individual payment methods to building resilient infrastructure capable of supporting long-term innovation, according to Form3.

The payments technology provider said financial institutions will require flexible, scalable infrastructure to support emerging payment models while maintaining the speed, security and reliability expected by consumers and businesses.

Mike Walters, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Form3, said innovation should be underpinned by technology that can adapt to changing customer expectations and new forms of digital commerce.

“The future of retail payments isn’t about creating a single new payment method, it’s about building infrastructure that can support continuous innovation,” Walters said. “While consumers’ and businesses’ demands will continue to evolve, instant, secure and seamless payments have become a baseline expectation.”

He pointed to the growing adoption of Pay by Bank as an example of how account-to-account payments are reshaping the payments ecosystem. According to Walters, the payment method offers the potential to provide consumers with greater choice while enabling merchants to benefit from faster settlement and lower processing costs.

“As account-to-account payments become a mainstream option for ecommerce, they have the potential to give consumers more choice, provide merchants with faster settlement and lower costs. However, those benefits will only be realised if the infrastructure behind them is right,” he said.

Walters noted that the real-time nature of direct bank transfers leaves little room for operational delays or errors.

“Direct bank transfers use account-to-account rails to deliver instant, irrevocable payments. This immediacy removes any margin for error, as when a customer clicks ‘pay’, the transaction must authenticate, process and settle in seconds.”

He added that innovation must be supported by strong customer authentication, fraud prevention measures and data protection to maintain trust in digital payments.

“Robust safeguards, including strong customer authentication and data protection, are also needed to minimise the risk of fraudulent transactions,” Walters said.

Looking ahead, Walters said future developments such as digital money and agentic commerce will place further demands on payments infrastructure.

“The same is true for digital money or agentic commerce. Solid foundational infrastructure is the only way to support innovation to deliver faster payments without compromising security or reliability.”

He concluded that continued investment in flexible and interoperable infrastructure will be essential as payments technology, regulation and customer expectations continue to evolve.